Description:

As the introductory class to the Design Cultures & Creativity Program, this course is designed to familiarize you with a variety of perspectives on digital media, design, creative practices, emerging research in the field, and ways in which the DCC program can augment and extend your chosen majors. Throughout the course, we will focus on topics such as community and social media, the history of technology, design in everyday life, identity, privacy, mobile technologies, infrastructure, e-waste, and the digital divide. Coupled with these lectures, we as a class will engage these ideas through hands-on explorations such as redesigning the university lecture, collectively tracking down the surveillance cameras on campus, the creation of a flash mob, repairing broken technologies, work toward solutions for those who don’t have access to digital media, and a creative misuse of algorithms. This class will be cool.

What You Will Learn in this Class (Some of Our Course Objectives):

You will learn about how technology impacts identity and community (and has done so throughout history).

You will learn what makes good design in everyday life and will explore ways in which all aspects life are designed.

You will gain a greater awareness of how your data is being tracked and the pervasiveness of surveillance around you.

You will understand the trajectories of mobile technology and how this medium can transform a public space.

You will gain a deeper understanding of the infrastructures and tangible objects in the world that are required for the internet to exist.

You will be able to better assess the sustainability and environmental impact from digital technologies.

You will gain skills to be able to repair broken technologies (and understand why repair is an intervention into a culture of planned obsolescence).

You will learn the deeper causes of — and solutions for — the digital divide.

You will gain a deeper understanding of how digital technologies are transforming the creative process.

Required Texts:

All readings will be available through online links in the syllabus or posted on Canvas (elms.umd.edu)

Grades:

Active Engagement: 5%

Twitter: 10%

Quizzes: 10%

Attendance at Events/Lab: 15%

Self-Portrait Assignment and Reflection: 15%

WordPress Blog and Portfolio: 20%

End of Year Self Evaluation Paper: 25%

Twitter Responses:

You will need a Twitter account to interact with the in-class lectures. We recommend that you set up a separate account just for this class. Please be sure to email your username to your discussion leader. Please note, your Twitter account cannot be set to private (or others in the class will not be able to see your tweets, including your instructors who are grading you on this assignment). You must post to Twitter at least once during each lecture on Mondays (you will not tweet on days that we have hands-on explorations). All tweets must include the hashtag #dcc105. Your baseline score is out of 8 percent; exceptional posts and uses of Twitter may garner you a bonus score up to a maximum of 10 percent total. To gain the 2 bonus percentage points (for a total of 10 percent for the semester), you must post especially insightful posts, provide useful links to outside material, or offer consistently helpful and engaged responses to classmates’ posts. Tweeting multiple times in a week will not make up for days that you did not tweet or were absent. I recommend downloading a Twitter application to use during class such as Tweetdeck. Note: for students who don’t have a laptop or smartphone, iPads and tablets will be available for you during each lecture. You may instead send tweets during class by using the text message feature on your phones. You must text your message (140 characters maximum) to 40404 after setting up your cellphone at www.twitter.com/devices.

Your Twitter Responses are worth 10% of your grade.

Active Engagement:

Your active engagement grade is determined by your participation in all lectures, discussions, and hands-on explorations. Your participation is crucial to the learning you will experience in this class and absences are weighted accordingly. Because this is a discussion-driven and hands-on class, the quality of the class for everyone is in large part dependent on the quality of preparation and visible engagement of each participant. Please realize that although you may have prepared the readings and assignments and may be listening to others, if you do not actively demonstrate your preparation and ideas in discussion, there is no way to observe and, hence, evaluate the quality of your preparation and participation.

Students are expected to attend classes regularly. Consistent attendance offers students the most effective opportunity to gain command of course concepts and materials. Excused absences must be requested promptly and must be supported by appropriate documentation. Excused absences include those based on medical necessity and religious observation. Students are responsible for meeting with the instructor to discuss appropriate academic accommodation, and are responsible for determining all information and material missed due to absences. Students are expected to inform the instructor in advance of medically necessary absences, and present a self-signed note documenting the date of the missed class(es) and testifying to the need for the absence. It is the student’s responsibility to notify the instructor within the first 3 weeks of class regarding any religious observance absence(s) for the entire semester. Active Engagement is worth 5% of your grade.

Attendance at Events and Lab Studio Hours:

Since we are a living-learning community, much of our learning will take place outside of the traditional classroom environment. As part of your grade for DCC 105, you are required to attend at least 1 Design Camp on either Sunday, September 18 or Sunday, October 9th (these will run from roughly 9am-5pm. You are also required to attend 1 of the following: guest speakers in DCC, approved public lectures across campus, approved art events, or attendance at one our film series showings and discussions. Lastly, you must log 5 studio hours in the DCC Lab. These events and studio hours are worth 15% of your grade.

Quizzes:

Each week that has readings associated with it in the schedule will have a quiz on those readings. These quizzes will cover the material in the readings and will cover content from the previous lecture. These quizzes, which are mainly multiple choice, matching, and the occasionally short answer question, are designed only to make sure that you are keeping up with the readings and attending lectures. There are no trick questions; if you have done the readings and taken notes on the lectures throughout the week, you will get a good grade on these quizzes. These quizzes are taken on our Canvas and must be completed prior to lecture each Monday (except for the days that have no reading, i.e., days where we’ll be doing a “Hands-On Exploration”). Each quiz will be available on Canvas for 24 hours prior to the lecture. Once lecture begins on these days, the quiz will be closed and cannot be taken if missed. For example, a quiz due by lecture on Monday will be available starting at 4pm on Sunday and will cover topics discussed in the readings due for that day and will include questions drawn from the previous lecture. Quizzes are worth 10% of your grade.

WordPress Blog and Portfolio:

You will be given your own WordPress install that will be a part of your entire career in DCC. You will use it in this course for written responses to the course material (and to engage the writing of your fellow classmates), to post your work, and to set up a professional web presence that can be used as you apply for internships and jobs. In future DCC classes, you will continue to use this site as a portfolio for your work and, ultimately, as the main site for your Capstone Project. Your site can be accessed at http://dcc.umd.edu/portfolio/ followed by your first initial and your full last name. To log in, follow your username by /wp-admin. For full details on this aspect of the course, visit “Course Assignments” on the course webpage, which will have a full grading rubric and list of expectations.

Self-Portrait:

Through the creation of a self-portrait and interacting with self-portraits from other sections in DCC 105, we will engage how identity is tied self-perception and in what others see (and understand) when they look at us. In the “selfie era,” we make images for others and to also reflect on how we understand ourselves. How can we gain a better understanding of the coded visual cues in those portraits? Are we creating accurate messages about ourselves? For this assignment, you will create a non-traditional self-portrait using imagery of your choosing. A traditional self-portrait is a (mostly) life-like replica of a person, clearly defining facial or other features of the artist. For this self-portrait, however, you are to create an abstraction or symbolic representation of yourself rather than create a literal image of yourself. Think of this as a symbolic (rather than literal) selfie. Once created, we will engage with other self-portraits to explore identity, labeling, and diversity. You will conclude this project by writing a reflection paper about your self-portrait and your experience with this assignment. The Self-Portrait is worth 15% of your grade.

End of Year Self-Evaluation:

Some researchers have suggested that students will likely only retain about 5% of the material covered in a course after several years have passed. This assignment is geared to help you identify the topics covered in this course that have impacted you and are ideas that you would like to carry with you well after the completion of this course. This written assignment will be a self-evaluation reflecting on the topics studied in this course. You must pick two ideas, terms, or concepts covered at some point in this course and discuss how your ideas about these concepts have changed throughout the semester. You must also connect these topics to your larger interests, major, or career goals. The objective is to trace how an idea evolves through analysis and how that idea can have an impact on areas of your life that are important. The Self-Evaluation Paper is worth 25% of your grade.

Note on Academic Honesty and Plagiarism: Any source that you draw ideas, quotes, or media (photographs, videos, vectors, schematics, etc.) from must be cited accurately in your writing. If you use any source in your work without correctly citing the work, this constitutes plagiarism. Any intentional plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the assignment and may result in a failing grade for the course and an XF on your transcript.

Plagiarism:

Category A: Sloppiness. Automatic “0” on paper, with option to rewrite for no better than a “C”

Category B: Ignorance. Automatic “0” on paper, with option to rewrite for no better than a “C”

Category C: Obvious Conscious Cheating. Automatic “0” on paper, with no option for rewriting. You will likely receive a failing grade for the course. You will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct and may face the Student Conduct Board in a hearing to determine the consequences of the offense. Students found responsible for a violation of the Code of Academic Integrity by the Student Honor Council, receiving an “XF” or worse, will be removed from the Honors College, including the living and learning program.

For those of you who are not aware of what constitutes plagiarism, here is a breakdown of the various types:

Buying papers, borrowing papers, or recycling former papers unrevised and claiming these types of papers as your own for your assignment in this (This constitutes a Category C offense)

Cutting and pasting parts of a webpage or borrowing passages from a book for your paper without properly citing these parts and claiming the material as your own for the expressed intent of (This constitutes a Category C offense)

Failing to use proper citation style for material you borrow, (This constitutes either a Category A or B offense)

Students with Disabilities: The University is legally obligated to provide appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities. The campus’ Disability Support Services Office (DSS) works with students and faculty to address a variety of issues ranging from test anxiety to physical and psychological disabilities. If a student or instructor believes that the student may have a disability, they should consult with DSS (4-7682, email Dissup@umd.edu). Note that to receive accommodations, students must first have their disabilities documented by DSS. The office then prepares an Accommodation Letter for course instructors regarding needed accommodations. Students are responsible for presenting this letter to their instructors.

—Please Note: This syllabus is subject to change at any time according to the professor’s discretion. The assignments below may also include readings handed out in class, which each student is responsible for completing.

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This is a text widget. The Text Widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use a text widget to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Edit them in the Widget section of the Customizer.